Power Players: India's Gen‑Z jobs crisis

**Rahul Tandon** (0:00)
Now, I've just come back from India, I'm missing it all already. It is the country I lived in for many years. It's where my family comes from. And if you listen to our business programs, we keep telling you, it's one of the fastest growing economies in the world. But at the same time, its youth unemployment is rising and frustration in the country is mounting. When I was there, it was the main topic of conversation. And that led to the biggest protest the country has seen in years and the resignation of its education minister.
India has the largest youth population on this planet. More than 730 million people are under the age of 30 So the question is a simple one. How do you create enough jobs fast enough for a population this large? And what happens if you can't? That's this week's episode of Power Players on Business Daily.

**Will Bain** (0:54)
Yeah, welcome back to the program. I'm Will Bain here in the UK.

**Rahul Tandon** (0:57)
I'm Rahul Tandon, unfortunately, here in the UK as well.

**Arunoday Mukharji** (1:00)
Arunoday Mukharji here in Delhi.

**Will Bain** (1:02)
Yeah, great to have you with us, Arunoday. Michelle, unfortunately, still not with us this week, but you're perfectly placed to chat to us about all that's been going on. I mean, how consumed have you been by this story in the last couple of months in the Delhi office?

**Arunoday Mukharji** (1:13)
Completely. Honestly, it's been unreal to see what happened. If you've been following Indian politics for a while, especially since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over in 2014 I mean, these were unprecedented scenes that played out on Delhi's streets.
But I think the ones who were really caught off guard was the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. And I think that's where the story really turned. And we were all surprised about what happened.

**Will Bain** (1:35)
Well, if you were one of those who was caught off guard, the next 20 minutes or so is going to be perfect if you're going to catch you up on all of it. What might happen next? And also, if you're listening around the world, I think, guys, this is a challenge for lots of countries beyond India, isn't it? Especially with AI and a crunch on kind of graduate jobs and lower entry level jobs around the world, what on earth you do to try and tackle unemployment, particularly among young people as well. Let's go right back to the start then for people. It all began, of course, as a joke.

**Abhijit Dipka** (2:03)
I just wrote simply, what if all the cockroaches come together on my personal Twitter handle? And that tweet somehow received 7 to 800 reposts, reshares, and this was predominantly by the Gen Z. These were all college going students and who were like, yeah, we should all come together. We should all come together. And that led me to, you know what? Maybe here's an opportunity to do something really creative, really funny.
It wasn't meant to launch a movement.

**Will Bain** (2:30)
So is it fair to call him King Cockroach? Abhijit Dipka there, the top cockroach, the leader of the cockroaches, a sort of Arunoday accidental folk hero at this point?

**Arunoday Mukharji** (2:43)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, who would have thought that a name like that, which is definitely grabbing headlines, would turn into something like this? I mean, it was not the most flattering name, but it all began with what the Chief Justice of India said, referring to those who are unemployed in India as cockroaches. Of course, he later said that his comments were misinterpreted, but the damage had been done. And look at where we are now. It was a movement which started as an online satirical movement and then turned into this massive on the street movement. And yes, led by Dipka and a lot of these other youth leaders who now have a following on their own right.

**Rahul Tandon** (3:19)
What interested me when I was in India was, it was a youth angle, wasn't it? Because it seemed to be an inspiration. Not just, we saw this huge protest in Delhi. I was in Kolkata, went to other parts of India as well. And everywhere I went, this is what people were talking about, because maybe the first significant challenge to the Modi government since they came to power and on an issue that resonates with Indians, you know, there's 1.5 billion of them. They're very different. There's different regional religions, everything, but resonated with everyone.

**Arunoday Mukharji** (3:48)
I think that's it. I think that's exactly what happened. I think the way it resonated first was proved by the kind of following the Cockroach Janta Party got online. And I think the kind of organic nature of the protest, of course, there are counterarguments about whether it was organic or not or whether it was politicized. But what we saw on the streets was the way in which people were coming in and sort of, you know, joining themselves, aligning themselves with the protest, with different stories about how they didn't have a job or they were struggling to get admission in some sort of college. That really resonated.